Out of fairness, I'm not opposed to that idea. There are some books I have never tried to revisit; however, I have tried with an open mind to read some works again, and my opinion didn't change enough to sway my overall view. You're pointing out one of the point I raised, the audience is wrong for these works, which is why kids don't continue to read. This is why free choice the route schools should take.

That really gets to the core of the issue, why doesn't the teacher, professor, or whatever want to discuss the book? Even if you disagree wholeheartedly with the theme / plot, you need to be open as an educator.

That could easily lead into a very dark place, and if that happened, that's a different topic, but for the most part, just keep it open.

Yes, you could write your program to not use it, but, how about all the libraries, and tooling? Unless your entire chain / stack is free from any unsafe keywords, it's basically useless. Even if your stack has no use of “unsafe”, the fact “unsafe” exists at all, destroys the concept of memory safety. If Rust is going to claim memory safety, without being memory safe, why not just claim anything at all? Rust is the only language that can make mythical unicorns real, it's just as valid a statement as being memory safe, in that it's a completely false statement.

Fine, if we're not going to agree, fair enough, have a great week!

Just to be clear, at no point is one kids kissing another kid they think is dead?

Kids do like to learn, I have two daughters in high school, and they have a large group of friends. Everyone likes to learn, they just hate the way everything is taught, and when they object they're silenced on the spot as being idiots, or not understanding why things are taught that way. The math curriculum is a good example of this, they removed the fundamentals, the tested and true mythologies that have been shown to work, in favour of some common core Canadian nonsense. There has been so many times when the examples don't work. Not subjectively, objective, I've written textbook authors asking why the questions, and examples are broken, and in almost all the cases, the textbooks are misprinted. It's been over a dozen times when the examples are missing steps, and so the kid is left confused and think they've misunderstood something.

As for the other point, it matters that you read, and that you can explore the literary landscape to find what you enjoy. Once you find what you enjoy, you'll likely want to enjoy it more, and that's what schools and teachers should be encouraging. I don't mind if a kid wants to read a book about sport stats, if they enjoy it, let them enjoy it, and promote similar works for them. You can still have, I don't know, 25% of the reading assignments as the classics, but make the vast majority open, self-driving exploratory reading. Do it without bias, and with open discussion, and you'll see this turn around.

I actually agree with that, based on your last statement. Give kids the freedom of choice, and I think you solve many problems. I have two kids in secondary school, and they're also in the reading club. Last night they showed me the “approved reading list”, approved reading list, as in, they have to pick books based off that list, and I think you understood that, to be fair. They're in a reading club, but still can't pick what they want to read, why?

It's not even that they can't pick what they would like to read, It's that if they criticize the list, they're regarded as literary morons, who shouldn't be given the chance to read. I still remember the treatment from high school, from the English teachers. “You don't like Shakespeare! Gasp.”, “No, I think the works are boring, and rather grossly inappropriate, especially seeing as when I brought a book in that had objectively more appropriately themes, I couldn't read it.”. “No, I don't like The Great Gatsby, it's terribly written, has a horrible plot and theme, that is so thin, that you'd have to simpleton to find it anything but horrible.”.

Crab: “An alcoholic goes camping.”, that's really the entire book, a kid with a drinking issue, goes camping. The Kay: “A white kid is stranded with an older black dude, and goes blind for a period.”, not leaving much out of that, there was some more to it, to be fair, but it doesn't add a lot. I've given my objective review of R&J many times, there's a video where a teenager is topless in it, and somehow that is considered acceptable viewing a high school English class. I think in that video the directory got sued for exploitation.

There a book last year that was by a Native American author, that the kids had to read. My daughter thought it was boring, poorly written, and dry. When she pointed that out to the teacher, the teacher was taken-a-back with disgust. Why didn't the teacher take her opinion as a talking point, and open discussion? Still have them read it, still have them read the classics, but, given them enough freedom that the classics make up, I don't know, 25% of the reading assignments, and let the other 75% be self-driven, with an open mind, and open discussion.

It's objectively CSAM, one kid has a make out session with another kid, they think is dead. What do you call that? I would call it CSAM, or, pseudo-necro-paedophilia, or csam-necro-pedophile, or any combination that clearly points out one kids, was having a fucking making out session with another kid they thought was dead. If you don't recognize that, and flag it as a serious problem, what do you want me to say? When you go to a funeral, do you think: I'm going to have a fun night of hot sex with the corpse?

This is an objective take, everyone knows the story, it all boils down to one kid having there way with another kid they think is dead. If you read that and think it's literary gold, you're essentially admitting what you're into. If you want to try to explain why that's not disgusting and inappropriate, please go ahead. You'll keep falling into the issue that one kid is frenching another kid they think is dead, and you can't get away from that.

There is nothing about my argument that suggests kids aren't into learning because they don't like the “classics”, the entire argument is the classics have failed to instill a love of reading. The stereotype is that kid who hates the classics, but, if that has been happening for decades, among a large population of kids, then maybe the kids have a point. What is a kid meant to take from books that lack character development, plot development, and interesting themes?

If a kid doesn't like a classic work, figure out why, and don't brush it off as if they're against learning, education or reading. It's time to kill the classics, they've proven time and time again they don't hold attention, they lack quality, and they're not worth the paper used to print them. Let kids have true open reading time, and open reading selection, let the kids pick the books, and figure out what they want to read. Kids don't enjoy reading because what's offered isn't worth reading.

Maybe, 1% of kids enjoy the classics, hell, I'll go to 20% of the kids like the classic, that would still be 80% don't, and if the vast majority don't like what's offered, then education failed.

That's not a comparable example, you don't review reports, policies, and licenses for enjoyment or to instill a love of reading such things, you do it because you have to. Schools need to change, stop giving kids terrible, inexcusable piles of crap to read, insist they have to love them, and give them open reading choices, and you might see this reverse. Why stop a kid from reading something? It's not relevant what it is, if a kid wants to read it, let them, and have honest discourse about it, regardless as to what you feel. Again, if you're a black teacher and a kid brings in novels about a fictional KKK group that commits acts of violence, and hate, you should let them. You should be prepared to have a real discussion, and be open to the ideas, regardless to your feelings.

It's time to discontinue the “classics”, they've failed. How many kids have to point out the books are boring, poorly written, lack plots or themes of interest, before the system wakes up? The Great Gatsby is not going to become a good novel for the vast majority of kids who are forced to read it. The same is true for most of the reading assignments kids are given. All you're doing is showing them crap gets giving a gold stamp of approval, and to steer clear of it.

What would happen if a kid points out that R&J is basically a play for people who are csam-necro-enthusiasts? Would a teacher respect that view, point out that one kid making out with another they believe to be dead, is disgusting, or, would they blame the kid for not liking Shakespeare? I can tell you what will happen, the kid will get blamed for misunderstand the point, which they didn't. If kids have been pointing out for decades that the reading assignments are trash, poorly written nonsense, that aren't worth the paper they're printed on, listen to them.

The thing about kids missing the point, did they miss the point? I've had a teacher argue me about R&J in grade 10, I didn't miss the point, she was into necro-csam, sorry she can't admit it. It's not beautiful, it's literally a story about csam, dressed up to make it socially acceptable.

C++ has a stable spec, and stable tooling. I don't understand why you've never done multi tool chain verification, but, I have, I've used XC8, GCC and Clang to verify the build of critical systems. The reason for that was to make sure a byte error wasn't present, as XC8 had a known issue that the same build done repeatedly could produce different output.

Before Rust can be considered ready for production, it needs a stable spec, multiple compilers that are independent, and, it has to drop the stupid, idiotic and completely false claim about being memory safe, it's not, even accidentally. You don't need "unsafe" behaviour and memory smashing to get I/O to work, you can handle I/O with complete safety.

Yes! I remember that episode, and a friend I had growing up, had that projected map on a globe in his living room. There is no reason to use an incorrect projection, this problem was fixed decades ago, it should already be a done deal.

I was going to write the same thing, tracking of any kind is unacceptable, including the government tracking its citizens.

I remember both primary and secondary school reading assignments, neither instilled a love of reading because the books generally just sucked. In primary school (1991–2000) we read books such as: “The Kay”, “Where the Red Fern Grows”, “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes”, “David”, and importantly, the selection of books we could choose from, wasn't good. In grade 6, I got in trouble for bringing a book from the town library, that my teach, Mrs Rosey, found inappropriate due to the plot / theme. I don't remember the name of the series, but it was medieval fantasy, and it has three books, all pretty good from memory, but I wasn't allowed to read them for my book reports. Then there was the time I bought in an autobiography from Tim Allen, and was told you can't write a book report on a biography, was never told why, and for the record, you can. I left primary school with the incorrect assumption that reading was boring, stupid and lame, the typical opinion of many students.

Secondary school didn't get much better, apart from the “classics” like “The Great Gatsby”, and “The Pearl”, we read “Hatecht”, “Crab”, and many others, I'm really blanking on them right now. I remember none of them caught my attention or gave me a want to read more. During open reading period the book I brought was considered inappropriate, again, due to the plot / theme. It was a book about dark, and I mean dark, BDSM themes, all fictional. I still have the collection on my bookshelf in the basement. The school, VP, P and English Teacher tried to lecture me about why the book was inappropriate, and of course failed because they promoted “R&J”, a play about pseudo-necro-paedophilia. They actually tried to convince me a book about a pre-teen making out with a different dead pre-teen was someone how the height of literature. The book I brought, which was about a female slave serving a house, wasn't trash. At least the character in my book was an adult, and didn't violate the dead body of another.

Then there were free writing periods, where again, I got in trouble for plots / themes that my teachers thought were inappropriate. I went to catholic school, where the primary them of the Bible is basically God raping Mary, to birth himself as human, so he can put on a grandstanding S&M session to forgive himself, from himself to himself, for being a shitty engineer (basically a Rust evangelist). My stores didn't include rape, S&M, or an inability to grasp the basic concept of morality or ethics, so why were they inappropriate? I remember Ms Brown trying to explain why the story I submitted was inappropriate, but, never convinced me.

Maybe the numbers are falling because adults pushed, and are pushing low-quality trash, as the gold standard, well, eliminating choice, freedom, and exploration. I also took creative writing in University, as an elective, but we won't go into that, the teacher was mentally ill, and not slightly, she was a boot stomping far-left feminist, who thought the Middle Ages never happened.

When I started to enjoy reading again, when I got to pick the books I wanted to read, without the expectation that if I didn't like them, I was unfit to read them in the first place. If you want to make kids love reading, give them a large selection, across all possible and plusable, legal, themes/plots. Be prepared to discuss the books properly, without bias, and with an open mind. Imagine if a white student brough a book about a fictional KKK group, commiting acts of hate, and violence, prompted as positive. If a black teacher wouldn't engage, openly and willingly with that book and student, that teacher is the problem. If a kid brings in an Anne Rice novel, about extremely dark BDSM themes, and you don't feel comfortable with the kid reading it, again, thats your problem.

I have no opinion on C++, I've done effectively zero programming in it. I think the disconnect is that people want all the handholding, and dictator like control, without realizing the dictator is Trump, and have to lie to defend it.

Rust might turn out to be an excellent solution, but it's not there yet, so from an engineering prospective, it's not an option if you really have a sensitive system. You can write bulletproof C, or probably bulletproof any language, you just have to understand what you're doing, and importantly, check, check, lint, check, lint, lint, lint, multi compile, byte compare, oh, and check!

I had a professor in University, Bill, who used to try to instill how dangerous function pointers were. His point boiled down to: "People are idiots, and misuse basic functionality, so to prevent issues, don't use them."